Journal Articles

Consciousness cannot be articulated. In the unconditional state it is inexpressible. However, this Transcendental Reality could be naturalized internally by the human brain, which has been evolutionarily primed to do this. On the other side, externally, this has been a spontaneous happening in nature.

The Galileo Commission for expanding the scope of Science (https://www.galileocommission.org) launched in 2018 has taken up this issue seriously. At this specific Galileo Moment, the author who happened to be a member of the Advisory Board of this Commission, has chosen zero-point energy state of the brain as an important central issue for this purpose which might initiate multidisciplinary research to push the envelope of science farther.

We have recently started to understand that fundamental aspects of complex systems such as emergence, the measurement problem, inherent uncertainty, complex causality in connection with unpredictable determinism, time-irreversibility and nonlocality all highlight the observer’s participatory role in determining their workings.

There emerges the broad outline of organization in the design of unified systems science. The outcomes have promises for pathology and molecular medicine, cell biology and synthetic biology, psychology and psychiatry, artificial intelligence and bio-robotics.

Books & Chapters

Several modern scientific disciples arrive fast in exhausting the one-sided mechanical and reductionistic thinking that were established upon. Biological Evolution is discussed as such an example here.

During the last twenty years or so, the investigation of fundamental aspects of complex systems in connection with the observer's participatory role in determining their understanding brings forth a novel perspective in science.

We proposed in the mid 1990’s that consciousness depends on biologically “orchestrated” coherent quantum processes in collections of microtubules within brain neurons, that these quantum processes correlate with, and regulate, neuronal synaptic and membrane activity, and that the continuous Schrödinger evolution of each such process terminates in accordance with the specific Diósi–Penrose (DP) scheme of “objective reduction” (“OR”) of the quantum state.

After nearly half a decade of transpersonal psychology, to be precise 43 years after the foundation of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology that gave the nascent movement an academic and scholarly appearance, it seems about time to pause and ask: What has the movement of transpersonal psychology really achieved?

One of the most persistent conceptual errors in philosophy, psychology, and neurophysiology is the attempt to explain memory by means of memory traces (sometimes called “engrams”). The underlying problems are very deep and difficult to dispel, and as a result, trace theories are quite seductive.

However, my own assessment was that Sheldrake’s staunchest supporters and detractors were both wrong: Sheldrake’s view of formative causation was neither viable nor as radical as it seemed. But it wasn’t crazy either; in fact, Sheldrake’s proposal revealed considerable intelligence, insight, and originality. Nevertheless, it was seriously flawed, and to my surprise I found it to be flawed for the same reasons as the theories Sheldrake was concerned with rejecting.

Book Reviews

The subtitles of these books are significant in referring to a spiritual vision for modern man and the integration of experiment with experience in arriving at a coherent worldview. Both Max and Peter epitomised the Network approach of balancing rigour with openness, and indeed it was Peter who invited Max to join the Network after the initial meeting recommended writing letters to possible members.

At all stages, it is important to let go of fear and anger resulting in accumulating pain and leading to energetic instability. Richard shows how management of the emotions is a key in this respect, although the fulfilment of the ego’s needs and the soul’s desires is even more critical.

John Casey gives a magisterial overview of the Western eschatological tradition – death, judgement, heaven and hell – providing sympathetic and lucid summaries of a vast range of different and at times conflicting sources that is a real pleasure to read.

There is no doubt in my mind that the book is a seminal one for philosophy of science and should be much more widely known in the field. It consists of five parts, namely metaphysics beginning with Aristotle, anti-metaphysics, the existence of God, the metaphysics of Kant, and causation.

The author is surely correct in describing the collaboration between Krishnamurti (1895-1986) and David Bohm (1917-1992) as uncommon, since, as he points out, most collaborations take place within the same discipline. There is no doubt that they were both men of genius, deeply concerned with the human situation, its limitations and prospects.

The book is grounded in inter-spirituality and endorsed by Ravi Ravindra with its deeper exploration of the spiritual transformative journey, which is the primary purpose of religion – hence the term interspiritual rather than interreligious dialogue.

Essays

Reverting to the primacy of mind and consciousness, as espoused by Planck and many other pioneering scientists, it is showing is that universal mind, articulated as digitised information and represented as dynamic and relational patterns and processes of semiotic information, literally in-forms the formation of our Universe.

The question is: How can scientific research on NDE help us to understand more about the mystery of the mind-brain relationship? By asking this and other questions about consciousness my interest started in NDE research.

Marcelo Gleiser, a 60-year-old Brazil-born theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College and prolific science popularizer, has won this year’s Templeton Prize. Valued at just under $1.5 million, the award from the John Templeton Foundation annually recognizes an individual “who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.

The following is taken from the author’s forthcoming book How To Run A Planet: Global Governance for an Inclusive and Sustainable World. It is presented here as a contribution to the Galileo Commission debate on expanding the scope of science beyond a narrow materialism and naturalism.

I asked some of the leading figures in the field of transpersonal psychology and empirical spirituality. Has the long-awaited paradigm shift not happened because of weak evidence, or institutional and psychological resistance?

Quotes

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I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.

– Erwin Schrödinger

Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.

– Prof David Bohm

Knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion— the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.

In this presentation, Brian Josephson demonstrates the pathology of disbelief in different scientific communities. Such disbelief has hit Parapsychological research particularly hard and has deemed it 'antiscientific'.

In this presentation Alan Wallace takes a look at what makes up for an exceptional claim and exceptional evidence. After looking at different types of evidence, such as physical vs subjective evidence, Wallace concludes that 'in today’s world, the notion that science is the
sole arbiter of truth is highly questionable'.

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